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Wednesday, June 22, 2011

THE ENVOY by Alex Kershaw ✰✰✰

As the Third Reich trembled and collapsed, Adolf Eichmann vowed to finish carrying out the Nazi’s horrific Final Solution-to cleanse Hungary of her remaining Jewish population. Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat posted to Budapest, would become famous for his exhaustive efforts to save these, the last Jews, not only of Hungary, but of Europe. In this work of non-fiction, Alex Kershaw recounts the story of several people who worked to subvert Eichmann’s plans, but his focus is principally on Wallenberg, the man who acted more selflessly and saved more lives than any other.

Because I have long been passionate about the story of Raoul Wallenberg, I think that I might have expected more than this book could realistically deliver. Kershaw’s research can certainly not be faulted. The reader is given plenty of details to become a fervent admirer of Mr. Wallenberg, and like every good historian, Kershaw employs a vast cast of first person accounts and other primary source materials. But for me the deluge of facts washes away the humanity of the story. Adolf Eichmann told Raoul Wallenberg that one hundred deaths are a catastrophe, but one thousand deaths are a statistic. So many events are skated over so quickly that its effect becomes desensitizing; I needed Kershaw to go deeper, to draw me into the grievous depths of a few stories. This story cries out for narrative non-fiction full of soul-felt catastrophe but delivers statistics.

This book was not on my reading list; I picked up the audio version because one of my favorite narrators, George Guidall, did the reading. While not my favorite of Guidall’s works, I think his gentle, fluid delivery did much to salvage the bald prose.

If you are interested in the waning days of World War II in Hungary, Raoul Wallenberg, or the Holocaust, you would likely find this book worth your while. I do feel, however, that those with an emotional attachment to the plight of the Hungarian Jews might wish to approach this account with caution, as the cold recitation of facts might prove rather unsettling.

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About Me

Living in The Last Frontier, being the mom of six great kiddos, and reading widely enrich my life.
Alaska makes it easy to live engaged with one's surroundings, and this heightened sensibility bleeds over into my reading. I want authors who can immerse me in their settings the way Alaska draws me into hers.
A good author will speak to me as a molder of little souls, as a woman who seeks to better understand family in all its forms, and as a wife in a complex, modern world.
Reading gives me the daily opportunity to broaden my knowledge, perceive my humanity, and embrace my role as a member of a local and global community. Sometimes it is simply an escape into someone else's space, be it real or imagined, felicitous or melancholy.